Sixteen
by those saboteurs
Summary: Futuristic fic. AU. Ten years after failing to return to her for the MORP, Scott runs into Shelby at a bar. Now, with multiple chapters! Whoo! Enjoy.
1. 01

**Disclaimer: **Higher Ground is not mine, etc.

**Author's Note: **This is a futuristic fic, and AU, implying that Scott did not return for Shelby at the MORP. THIS IS IMPORTANT. It might be a one-shot, or I might continue it if I have the time. Once again, it is random and weird and maybe a bit pointless. Oh well ;)

**Sixteen**

"You never came back."

The words are breathy and tumble out like an accusation, and Scott isn't quite sure what she means but he is positive that she is drunk. "What are you doing here?"

She shakes her head and sways on the barstool. He fears for a moment that she'll fall off, but he wants to catch her either way. "No, I was here first. What are _you_ doing here?"

Her words are childish and indignant, but he can't say he doesn't like it. They can pretend for a moment that they are both sixteen again, and maybe that it was ten days rather than ten years that have passed since the last time he saw her. Because he can't imagine being with her any other way, and he doesn't want imagine all of the things they could have had; it hurts too much. Plus, she's drunk.

"I'm on my way to Seattle. Got thirsty, saw the sign, came in for a drink." He wraps his hands around his glass, just for good measure. The condensation seeps into the cracks between his fingers and he reaches down to wipe them off on his pants, but stops when he remembers that it's not his suit. "Now, what are you doing here?"

Shelby Merrick lolls her head onto her shoulder, shrugging. "You shouldn't drink and drive, you know. Remember what Peter always used to say. Something like that." Her hair shifts as she cocks her head from one side to the other, imploring. Her glassy eyes flick lazily from his face to the space directly to the left of his head, as if she can't decide which is more interesting. Her mouth is twisted in a grin, half sarcastic and half mindless, but she doesn't answer his question.

"It's just Ginger Ale," he asserts, not understanding why he feels like he has to prove anything to her. He has to prove that he's not a drunk like her and that he's fine, normal—that he fared perfectly well outside of Horizon. That he'd been able to make something out of his life, despite everything: despite Elaine, the drugs, Horizon . . . and despite losing her. But right now he's stuck pretending he was sixteen again, and as if that never happened.

"I need another drink."—her voice is hoarse.

She makes an exaggerated motion to summon the barkeep, before Scott can stop her. Too late, he lays a hand on her arm and when their skin meets, he feels a flush heat his face and make the nape of his neck moisten with sweat. The smoke in the bar thickens and he finds it harder to breathe, and his haze only seems to clear when the barkeep asks her what she wants.

Scott answers for her. "She'll just have a Coke, on me. Thanks."

She doesn't protest, but shakes off his arm and pouts. "What was that for?" she asks when the barkeep is gone.

"You've had enough alcohol for today."

"I'm a grown adult, y'know. I _am_ allowed to have a drink whenever I want."

He opens his mouth to answer, but is suddenly disappointed. She _is_ an adult, he remembers, and they're not sixteen anymore. It has been ten years and not ten days since he last saw her. When he refocuses himself, he says, "Did you drive here by yourself?"

"Yes—but it's only a few blocks to my—"

"Don't drink and drive, isn't that what Peter always used to say?"

She glares at him—daggers dulled by alcohol. He smiles at his own incredible wit. The barkeep returns, setting a can of Coke and a glass of ice onto the countertop. She drags the can toward her, neglecting the ice, popping the tab and lifting the can to her lips. She has perfect enamel-coated fingernails. With her tongue against the slick aluminum, she says, "Peter can bite my ass."

He laughs, even if he thinks the statement was cruel. Even though he left ten years ago, Peter's words still live through every aspect of his life. "Whatever happened to Peter, anyway? Him and Sophie got married. I heard they adopted, like, a whole orphanage, just about."

She arches her neck as she drinks, tilting her chin toward the ceiling. He watches her throat muscles move as she swallows, and feels uncomfortable and as if he's gawking.

"I wouldn't know," she says when she puts her drink down. "I haven't talked to them in eight years."

Eight years, he silently echoes. And they all seemed so close. He wonders, wistful and tragic, what happened to you, Shel?

He doesn't realize he'd said it out loud until she answers.

"You never came back."


	2. 02

**Disclaimer: **Again, they're not mine.

**Author's note: **Hey, looks like I wrote more. There might—MIGHT be another chapter if I feel like it. Enjoy.

Suddenly he's twenty-six years old again and a responsible adult. He tries to blot out what Shelby said, and after a few minutes of insufferable silence he insists that he should drive her home, lest she cause an accident; she accepts because she knows he's right and knows that he won't take no for an answer. In the parking lot, they kiss under a streetlamp, but it's more like she fell onto his mouth when overcome by a wave of intoxicated dizziness.

She tastes like alcohol and cigarettes, even though he hadn't seen her smoking; but with all of the smoke sifting around inside the bar, it isn't too surprising.

He pushes the kiss out of his mind and holds her hair back when she vomits next to his car. Just like any good boyfriend would, only he's not her boyfriend and not a very good person. He slings her arm over his shoulder and helps her stumble into the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt. When he starts the car, the digital clock on the center console reads 2:28 AM, and she's already half-asleep. It's only after her eyes droop shut that he realizes he still needs to know where she lives.

Tentative, he doesn't want to wake her, so he drives until he finds a motel; it is seedy like the bar, but this time he doesn't mind because he's in that kind of mood and he doesn't have that much money. He wants to live an artsy television romance, where two old lovers reunite in a sleazy hotel, rediscovering the beauty of the love they once shared. Still, it probably won't happen like that, or at _all_, because Shelby is drunk and the suit he's wearing isn't his, and they're not sixteen anymore.

He drags her through the door and slips off Shelby's shoes, laying her on the bed, the one closest to the window. The shades are cracked open an inch or two, and the floodlights in the parking lot send a beam of light slicing through her midsection. From where he sits on the bed opposite, facing her, the same beam of light cuts his head and chest in half, ending somewhere on the wall behind him. He turns on the television, volume on mute, and leans back with his hands against the bed as light flicks across the screen. The comforter is clammy and even damp under his fingers, but maybe that's just because his palms have been sweating since he saw her at the bar. He realizes that the entire room smells like mold, and when he tilts his head toward the ceiling, there are water stains.

The air feels too thin. He reaches into his jacket pocket and lights a cigarette, wanting to fill the room with smoke so the smell of mold can dissipate. It would make the room seem even seedier, like in all those movies. Nothing happens in a clean hotel room, and Scott wants something to happen, even if he's not sure what.

As the cloud of carbon dioxide thickens floats over her, Shelby wakes as if from the dead. She half-sits up, propped on her elbow, and her face is illuminated in blue from the television screen. In the poor light and smoky haze, she looks sixteen again, and his breath catches in his throat. He coughs out a swear and wipes his bleary eyes with his sleeve, and by the time his eyes focus again the light from the screen had changed and she looks very much twenty-six.

"Could I have a smoke?"

He mutters a yes and reaches across the beds, across the void between them to hand her a cigarette. She pulls out a lighter from her pocket and he discovers that she must be a smoker. It seems seditious at first, and then he remembers that they are no longer rebellious teens, but burnt-out adults.

He wonders what it would be like to kiss her now.

"Hangover's a bitch," she mumbles with her lips around the cigarette. She takes a drag and exhales, the smoke from her cigarette mingling with the smoke from his. "Where are we?"

"The Pines Motel. I didn't know where you live, and you passed out." His voice has a twinge of guilt, as if he's let her down . . . again.

"Oh—I don't live here," she says. She says it as if even the idea that she did would be a mistake. "I'm visiting a business partner."

He pauses, soaking in the new information and feeling stupid for all of the assumptions he'd made about her when they were in the bar. "So you're on a business trip . . . drunk?"

"No," she looks flustered, "It's not a _business trip_, per se. I'm visiting a partner."

From the sound of her voice, she expects him to understand. But, sadly, he's never been very good at understanding her, and so he decides not to pry and just leave it alone. "Oh."

A void of silence descends between them. The distance from his bed to hers seems to widen to an infinite amount. He glances at the silent television, and there's a man on the screen who's grinning and moving his mouth wordlessly.

"I should get going. I have a meeting in Seattle tomorrow . . . " he glances at the clock. "I mean today." In two long strides he's at the door, fumbling with the latch because for some reason his hands are shaking and suddenly all he can think about is kissing her.

She lunges across the bed to catch his wrist. Her skin on his has the same dizzying effect as before, and the light from the television dances on the wall. He glances at her and her face is a mixture of confusion and desperation and hope; he wonders whether she's drunk or sober, and if he would allow himself to kiss her either way.

"Don't—" her voice falters.

Don't . . . what? He wants her to say _don't go_, but he wants her to finish her sentence just as much.

Her eyes flick around the room and she looks scared for a moment, as if she hadn't meant to say it. "Don't . . . forget your keys," she finishes lamely, her shoulders sagging.

Defeated but playing along, he gazes around the room. His car keys are on the nightstand next to his bed. "Oh—thanks." His voice is listless and he moves to get them, but she leans across the bed and grabs them before he can. Standing, she's less than a foot away when she slips the keys into his open palm, which is, by the way, sweating again. The keys feel cool and comforting.

She inhales sharp and fast, as if she were about to say something, but before any words can come out she leans forward and kisses him.

He can't figure out how it happened, but he finds himself kissing her back; the keys are sliding out of his hand and landing between their feet. He's unsure if he should allow this of himself. But he's not the one deciding that, because her hands are so tight around his arms that he couldn't pull away if he wanted to.

The room is hazy and smoky and the television is on mute. She's only in her socks and he has to bend his knees to accomodate her, but he doesn't want to pull away, regardless.


	3. 03

**Disclaimer: **I don't own them, etc.

**Author's Note: **Yet another chapter. Only because I wanted to clarify some things. There might be another one if I feel like it, but I'm almost positive I'll get flamed for this one. Oooh.

Scott decides, against his better judgment, to stay. They sit on the same bed, not touching; so close and yet so far apart. The mattress quivers as she bounces her leg up and down and the light from the television continues to flick across her face. She looks as anxious as he feels, because even if the kiss felt right, he's not sure if things are working out the way they should be. Ten years is a long time to resurrect a romance, and he knows this; he knows that they just can't pick up where they left off. He's not the same person he used to be, even if Shelby might be, or at least he thinks she is.

"So . . . " she begins, awkward, directing the conversation away from romance and heartbreak and the kiss they had just shared. "What's in Seattle that's so important?"

He had been hoping she wouldn't ask, but had been planning on lying if she did. And he really would have, but seeing her face now, he can't bring himself to do it, because lies are expensive and he has no money. "My uncle. I—" he falters, but then clears his throat. "I have to ask him for money."

She doesn't answer right away, and he's not sure if he should regret ever saying it. She nods slowly, not shocked or surprised like he had expected her to be; after all, here is Scott Barringer, rich and proud and begging a distant relative for money? Her face is contemplative, but then a wry grin twists her features, not mindless and lucid because her drunkenness appears to have worn off.

"You," she says. "You—asking someone for money?"

She's teasing him, he knows, and it makes him angry. She's acting like he is the same person he used to be, like they're both sixteen again, and as if they were still so close (beyond anything the kiss could mean) and as if she had the _right _to tease him—which isn't how things are now. Things have changed.

"Yes," he snaps, vitriolic, "I am. It turns out that one of my _business partners_ had messed up a transaction and our company lost thousands of dollars." His pride and indignity are getting ahead of him, he's overreacting incredibly, but he can't bring himself to stop. "See, my business partners are the kind who work at desks and make important phone calls and such, and my boss is a very important man; but lemme guess—_your_ 'business partners' are whores and your 'boss' is some pimp—"

A stinging blow surges across his face (he muses with bitter amusement that maybe what he said was not the most quick and painless thing to say), and he falls off the edge of the bed. Shelby is standing over him, yelling—"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE" and "STUCK-UP BASTARD" and "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT" and such—she's waving her arms, and the television screen is glowing and she looks like she's about to explode. She might have kicked him in the shin once or twice but a banging on the wall, coming from the adjacent room and followed by a muffled, "Shut the hell up!" quiets her.

"You want to know the truth, Scott?" She spits out his name like a bad taste. "My business partner is a researcher. He and I are collaborating to write a dissertation. You want to know what I do for a living? Cancer research. See, I help people, instead of sucking up to a boss every day and getting paid to do whatever he tells me to do. So, who's more of a whore here?"

She's right, she's right, she's right. So very right, and it stings because she had hit him and because he had been incredibly stupid. And Scott is ashamed and regretful and wishing he had never said anything at all. Cringing, he lets the silence act as a buffer, letting her calm down before he mutters, "Your right. I'm sorry." He takes a deep breath, his cheek aching. He wants to start over. He wants a second chance; his whole life has been made up of second chances, and he's begging for just one more. "I was lying, anyway. My boss is a bastard and not very important at all, and if you want to know the truth I live in a miserable one-room apartment in Los Angeles."

She sits down and slides away from where he's still sprawled on the floor. "My boss is a genius and has a hospital named after him, and if _you _want to know the truth I live in an upscale condo." Her voice isn't raging anymore, and he wonders if she still hates him. "But I'm not gonna tell you where."

He shakes his head with some sort of amusement, because his mind is pleasantly blank with the shock of her blow and her words and the realization that she is such a blinding success while he is somewhat a failure. "Congratulations," he says, "You're doing pretty well."

"Yeah. My husband's proud of me."

He momentarily forgets how to breathe. His eyesight blurs over and some sort of gag reflex kicks in, so that when he says, "What?" it comes out as a cough. He means to say, "Husband? But you just kissed me!" Instead, the words fall out of his mouth as incoherent drabble.

She looks up, blinking hard and the light from the television reflects off of her wet eyes. "I meant to tell you. I didn't mean to kiss you."

He is bewildered. "So then why did you?"

"Because—" She's crying because of him, but he's not so sore about it anymore. "Because I was drunk. Because I thought about you for almost ten years. And how ironic is it? The year I get over you, find someone I love, and get married is the year I _finally_ see you again."

Her rhetoric is agonizing.

Numb, he can't find any words to say.

The air feels too thin again, and her words reach his ears too clearly. "Did you really expect me to wait _ten years _for you?"

Yes, he realizes. Yes, he did.

**Author's Note: **Don't worry, it doesn't end there...


	4. 04

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Scott or Shelby or Horizon, etc.

**Author's Note: **Oh goodness. Now, see, I wanted to write a story with no commitment and I could just write more chapters when and if I wanted to...but with the last chapter I PROMISED another one, so here it is. Just be forewarned: this could be the last chapter, or it might not. I'm not making any promises...but I'm glad you're enjoying it...you are, right? Ack! You might hate me after this chapter...but, oh well ;)

He hadn't even noticed the ring on her finger, but he hadn't particularly been looking. His mind can't make the right connections fast enough; it just seems so illogical. The image of her he had preserved in his mind for ten years was immaculate and impeccable, and it seems so silly now that he thinks about it. Because, it turns out, she's married. For a moment he dares to imagine asking her to leave her husband. All they did was kiss, and now he feels so betrayed.

His artsy television romance is decaying.

He stares at her for a long time, and she's staring at her hands. She looks ashamed, and he's angry with himself for that—he should be the one who's ashamed, because he's the one who abandoned her, and he's the one who's thrown things completely off balance by returning. He hadn't even meant to run into her. He was just on a business trip. If he hadn't walked into the bar, if he had decided to wait a few miles before getting a drink, none of this would have even happened. She never would have kissed him, and he never would have found out that she'd moved on.

"Scott, I'm really sorry—" she begins, but he cuts her off.

"No, Shelby, I'm the one who should be sorry," and suddenly they are both groping for apologetic words.

They look away from each other, avoiding eye contact. Her gaze settles on the coffee-stained carpet, while his finds the television screen. The flashing images are distracting and obnoxious, and he wants to turn it off; but the remote control is gone, and he doesn't want to get up because the silence feels so thick and heavy that he would drown if he were to stand.

"I don't know what to do," he states dumbly.

"What do you want me to do?" she asks, and he doesn't know why she's saying that. He has no right to tell her what she should do.

"Don't ask me."

He glances at the clock, and it's five o'clock in the morning. His meeting is in an hour, and while he's sure he should, he doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay and get her to love him again.

He lights up another cigarette so he doesn't feel so obsolete, but it doesn't help. He sighs and pleads, "Can't we just—" but he stops when he realizes he doesn't know what to say. _Can't we just pretend like we're sixteen again, and you're not married?_

"Do you blame me?"

He's not quite sure what she means. "What?"

"Do you blame me for getting married?" Her voice is tenuous and her face has a look of growing trepidation, as if she were afraid of his answer.

No, he thinks immediately, but if he said it out loud he would be lying. If you look beyond the shock and the disappointment and the regret, yes, he does blame her, because they made some sort of a pact when they were sixteen. He had told her his secret, and she had told him hers, and they understood each other, and they _loved_ each other, and how could she just throw that all away for someone else? She had said it herself. She had spent the last ten years thinking about him.

"It's just . . . " he searches for the right words to say, because everything seems to be going so hideously wrong. "I mean, I thought everything we had counted for _something_ . . . "

"It did," she says quickly, but then adds, "But after ten years I didn't expect to see you again."

He feels like crying because everything feels so hopeless.

"I'm sorry."

He stands and shuts off the muted television. There's a pen lying on the nightstand, so he grabs it and searches for something to write on, almost frantic because he knows he has to leave. He wants to leave her something so she'll remember him, so it won't be another ten years before they accidentally run into each other at a bar. He's stretched thin after ten years, and if that ten becomes twenty he fears he'll disappear.

There's nothing for him to write on. He grabs her hand, palm-up, his own palms sweating again. Her skin almost burns against his, but he'll endure it. He writes his phone number on her hand, the characters sloppy and smudged.

"Call me sometime," he says, his voice more of a plea than a suggestion. "Please."

She nods, not looking at him.

"Goodbye, Shelby," he says, and wants to add, I love you, but he stops short. "Let's not let another ten years pass before we talk again, okay?"

He turns toward the door, not seeing her answer. His fingers slip on the latch and the doorknob is icy. He's not quite sure if he's making a mistake by leaving, or whether the mistake would be the promise that he'll see her again. He is numb as he stumbles into the cold night air, and his suit jacket is not nearly thick enough to warm his body. A shudder squeezes his throat, but for some reason it sounds more like a sob.

His car is by the dumpster, and, shivering, he twists the key in the ignition and sits in the parking lot, waiting for the car to warm up. He feels like there's a bomb back in that hotel room, and he's not sure what would set it off, which is the scariest part of all.

Then, with a great wheeze, the engine dies.

"Great," he mutters.

He doesn't move from his seat, because maybe the car will start again magically. It's not even his car; it's a rental. So he feels no remorse kicking his foot against the interior, scraping the plastic and his knee. He curses his incredible bad luck and wonders if fate is conspiring against him, because he is desperate to get away from the black hole back in that hotel room and he can't quite work out how he feels about her just yet.

Before it was merely a question of if he would allow himself to indulge in her; but now, everything is complicated and he's not sure what it is exactly that he's done.

A minute passes; and then five, and suddenly he's been sitting in that car for fifteen minutes and his teeth are chattering, but he hardly notices. He's staring at the hotel room door, hoping that Shelby doesn't see him because he doesn't trust himself to stay in control around her anymore. For fifteen minutes he succeeds, but then she emerges from the room, frowning. She motions for him to come over.

He obliges. When he nears her, she pulls him back into the hotel room, and the atmosphere seems to become insufferably hot.

"What are you doing?"

He rubs his palms together to warm his hands, and then answers her. "My car died."

"Why didn't you come inside sooner? You're frozen."

He shrugs. "I was hoping it would start again."

She mutters something indistinct, and then sighs. "Um," she gazes around, as if something in the room will tell her what to do. The TV, maybe? "Is there someone you need to call or anything? What time does your meeting start?"

"I'm going to miss it, either way," he says, sounding pointless. "I can call the rental agency. I'll sue them."

His voice is light and joking, even if his teeth are chattering. He's getting good at pretending that he's all right. He picks up the phone receiver from the nightstand and dials the number, making arrangements as Shelby turns the television back on. She sets the volume on low, so that he could just barely hear the flat television voices.

When he's done, she turns to him and asks, "Well?"

"It'll take a few hours for them to get here," he tells her. He pauses. And then, out of dumb, morbid curiosity, he asks, "So . . . what's he like?"

"Who?" Her voice feigns innocence, implying that maybe she'd rather not talk about it. But he wants to hear about it for some twisted reason.

"Your husband."

She tips her eyes toward the ceiling again, taking a deep breath. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," he says, and his voice is quiet and low and surprising to them both.

"His name is Greg Townley," she says, and then hesitates. "We met in college. He was majoring in photographic journalism. We dated a bit . . . I mean, I dated a few guys, but nothing serious." She glances at him as if unsure, but he remains carefully static. "I don't know. I guess I just . . . fell in love with him . . . "

_. . . and fell out of love with me_.

His thoughts are indignant and a bit hazy, but he's certain that he doesn't know what to make of anything.

"Scott," she says, "When you were out at your car, I needed to get a ride back to my hotel room . . . so, I called him, and he's coming to pick me up soon." She says it as a sort of warning, or as if he'd be insulted by the words.

He swallows. "Alright. We can have a party," he adds with sarcasm.

She smiles, the kind of bland smile that fills up space when you don't know what to say. He notices that her shoes are back on, and is amused. His brain still is in some kind of state of shock, and it reminds him of the days when he used to go out and get so drunk that he felt so pleasantly blank and clueless and as if he were floating, but this time he's slightly weighed down with disappointment. They're not sixteen anymore, that is so painfully clear, but he's halfway to accepting that she's twenty-six and married.

He sits on the bed, the one farthest away from the door, because when her husband knocks he doesn't want to be in the way when she answers. It would be like crossing wires and creating static. He sits on the edge of the bed with his legs hanging off, leaning back and resting his palms against the comforter again. The room is not so dark anymore because she had turned on the light, so the bursts of color from the television are lost on the cheap, patterned wallpaper.

A soft knocking from the door drifts over the noise of the television. He is gripped with some sudden, inexplicable fear that maybe her husband is really better than he could ever be, or something akin to that; so he sits up straighter and tries to stare straight ahead.

He hears Shelby's fingers on the door latch, but he refuses to look over. Her voice murmurs a soft, sweet, "hey," much like she used to do with him, and it makes him wince internally. He doesn't know why he's putting himself through this. There is another voice, obviously masculine, and there is a rustle as they hug or kiss, but he's not looking—her husband makes a comment on how she tastes like alcohol, so he assumes that they kissed—and then Shelby says aloud, "Greg, I'd like you to meet someone."

Scott finally looks up, and Gregory Townley isn't who he had expected him to be. He's tall, but not as tall as Scott, a bit unassuming, with reddish-brown hair that sticks out from odd angles from his head and worn tennis shoes with rubber toes. He looks friendly, intelligent. He looks younger than Scott.

He's polite, too. He offers Scott his hand and says, "Nice to meet you. Shelby's told me a lot about you," but there is no jealousy or malcontent, or anything like that, even if Scott fosters those emotions in his own mind. The three of them strike up conversation, and Scott finds it ever difficult to justify the hate he holds for Gregory Townley, until it melts away completely, leaving behind an empty sensation that he is just never going to be good enough.

Naturally, the subject of conversation shifts toward Shelby's work, and Scott is slowly pushed out of their world. It's only then that he realizes how out of place and outdated he is; she is talking about things that he's never heard of before, and Gregory Townley is understanding every word of it. He feels pitifully obsolete again. Things have changed so much.

After a while, Shelby informs him that she and Greg have to leave. She sends her husband ahead to warm up the car, but she stays behind. He wishes as an impossible fantasy that maybe, just maybe, she'll kiss him again.

"Scott . . . " she says, "It was nice seeing you again. Really." She grabs his hands and slips something into his palm, closing his fingers around it. It feels like paper. He stares at her hand on his, and then his gaze travels up her arm to her face. "Let's not wait another ten years before talking again, okay?"

He nods, half numb, hopeful, and disappointed at the same time. She kisses him on the cheek. They're taking their time, but her husband is patient. Her hands linger on his wrist for just another moment, and then she backs away and the door clicks shut in her wake.

He opens his fingers and stares at the slip of paper she'd left him. On it, in neat, feminine writing, is her phone number. He suddenly misses her terribly, and, wanting to see her just once more, looks up—but the only thing that meets his eyes is the cheap wood of the motel door.


End file.
